When hiring reputable roofers, do your homework – we cannot stress the importance of this enough. Without careful research, you could be digging your own grave! All reliable roofing companies will have the following things in common:

Good workmanship warranty: Don’t take the word of a verbal warranty. Reliable roofing companies will give you an official warranty that falls in the three- to five-year range. Don’t trust unusually high warranties (25 years or more) or warranties that make absurd guarantees. There is usually no absolute guarantee in the roofing industry!

Physical address: We hate to admit this, but there are roofing scams out there. Some roofing contractors conduct business out of a truck, and they will not be able to provide trustworthy insurance, warranties or references.

Satisfactory answers: Don’t be afraid to ask questions; in fact, we encourage it. The more questions the better! Will the roofers come out for follow-up visits to make sure everything is working? How do they handle complaints? What is the most common roof repair from weather damage? By asking questions you can better assess the company and see how experienced they seem, which brings us to our next point.

Experience: Reputable roofers will generally have a lot of experience (10, 20, 30 years). As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. Well, the longer a roofing company has been in business, the better they have honed the necessary skills and perfected their practice (including customer service as well as physical labor!)

Official agreement: As mentioned above, you need an agreement on paper. If you don’t have a formal proposal, the company is not required to actually provide the services or do what they say they are going to do. Make it official!